The Time of Angels
by Ortinbras
Summary: Something weird is going on at GOA, but what is it and how will it affect the candidates and their repairers?
1. Prologue

PROLOGUE

PROLOGUE

Disclaimer: I do not own any part of Megami Kouhosei, except this storyline.

This takes place just after Ernest dies

"Sir, one of the pilots, Ernest Cuore, was just killed by an enormous Victim!" A messenger exclaimed bursting through the door of the Top's office.

"…"

"Sir, what shall we do?"

"Begin the replacement procedure immediately." The Top ordered

"Yes Sir" The messenger said, and then left closing the door behind him.

'_So, the Victim have finally evolved,_' he thought while leaning back in his chair. '_Now that the devils have evolved it is time for the angels to grow wings, so that they might do battle with the mongrels; in other words, the Victim will finally be exterminated. We have our sign that now is the time to put the plan into action as foretold by the prophesy._'

The Top pulled up a blank e-mail and addressed it to all of the instructors with specific instructions for their charges. "This just might shake things up a bit..." he said to no one in particular, "But the Time of the Angels is upon us."

A/N: Yea I know its short, but gimme a break its just the beginning after all. Besides the more comments I get, the more I'll be up for writing more.


	2. Proclamations

1 Year Later

Chapter One: Proclamations

Disclaimer: None of the characters are mine, but the storyline is.

1 Year Later

"Zero"

"…Uhh…"

"Zero wake up this instant," a tall spectacle-wearing figure demanded as he pulled the sheets off of a chocolate haired boy.

"C'mon Clay what's the hurry?" Inquired a certain chocolate haired boy as he mindlessly groped around for the missing sheets.

"Azuma said that he had an important announcement for us today."

Finally finding the sheets, "Hmm…" was all Zero said before falling back asleep.

"God damn it!" Clay cursed when suddenly an idea struck him; he knew it had a high probability of it working too.

"You know Zero, Hied already left," Clay pressured

"So," Zero countered, pulling the sheets over his head as he tried to block out Clay's voice.

"'So', he might have acquired an important tactic or battle strategy to beat you with, so hurry up already"

Now Zero, being Zero, didn't understand most of the words that Clay used but he did understand "Hied" and "beat you" so naturally he was moving pretty quickly by the time Clay was finishing his sentence. The only thing Clay had to say was that Zero was behaving in an "Interesting" fashion.

About seven minuets later Zero was ready to go, so he and Clay headed out to their classroom that they shared with Yamagi, Roose, Hied, and the repairer candidates: Saki, Wrecka, Tukasa, Ikhny, and Kizna.

Before the class began, (Zero and Clay were actually on time!) Zero, Roose, Yamagi, and Clay were talking about their Pro-Ing battles and EX, with Clay dominating the discussion (no surprises there). Hied was in his usual corner and his mind was in its own little world doing who knows what. The girls were talking amongst themselves about what the announcement might be about.

"Well…" Kizna was saying, "Azuma did say that it would change all our lives."

"Hey Saki do you have _any_ idea what this is about? I mean your partner _**is**_ Mr. Interesting." Tukasa asked.

All the girls' heads turned towards Saki.

"Well…" She began, "Clay did try to hack into the database to see what all this commotion is about, but this is one of the most heavily guarded secret on GOA, but he was able to get access to a few of the security cameras and a broom closet."

The other girls gave a big sweat drop with Kizna speaking for the rest of them, "A broom closet? Why would he need that?" Saki shrugged again, "Who knows," she replied, "I personally think he just wanted to have a challenge. He did say that no one ever uses the one he hacked though."

"At least we'll know what the big secret is soon enough; as for the closet, I'd rather not know what he's going to do with it…. or already has for that matter." Wrecka commented, to which the four repairers shuddered.

"What if the Victim have finally been defeated? Maybe that's what Azuma's big announcement is!" Ikhny exclaimed getting all their hopes up.

"Don't be so sure Allecto," Hied said coldly shooting down all their hopes, "If that were the case than Azuma would have told us already and we wouldn't have need for classes _or_ GOA anymore."

"Hied do you always have to be such a jackass? Or does it just come naturally?" Kizna yelled at him, her temper flaring.

Zero took notice of this and turned to watch. '_Well at least this time its Hied instead of me, Kizna has got to be one of the most vicious people I know when she's like this. But I do love it when she scrunches up her nose like that; it makes her look even cuter than normal.__'_As Zero's thoughts seized, for a couple of seconds, he realized what he had just told himself '_WAIT JUST A SECOND! I can't be having these kinds of thoughts about her, she's my REPAIRER, and those kinds of things just aren't allowed here. Not only that, but I wonder… how she feels_' he finished his thought with a sigh.

Meanwhile Kizna was chewing out Hied for being mean to Ikhny _again_. While she did this she felt a pair of eyes watching her. She turned to find that it was just Zero enjoying Hied's scolding with that stupid grin plastered on his face. '_He's probably just watching the show like everybody else_'. But even when she turned back to the other repairer candidates she still felt like somebody was staring bullets into her back. She turned to find a pair of sparkling blue eyes belonging to…

"Zero…"

"Did you say something Kizna?" Wrecka inquired

"No it's nothing, really" She answered her friend. '_It really isn't anything unless you count the fact that Zero won't stop staring at me with that idiotic grin on his face_' suddenly she heard a sigh that caused her ears to flick in the direction it came from. '_Well now it seems that he is thoroughly confused about something, well at least that little sparkle in his eyes make him innocent like this, its kinda cute actually._' Smiling at her last thought, she gave a little giggle until she realized what said thought was about. Shaking her head vigorously, she mentally berated herself, '_I CANNOT be having those kinds of thoughts not only because he's my partner and we would be expelled, but because the guy I'm thinking about is ZERO!_'

While the two of them were lost in thought about one another, Azuma burst through the door.

"Everybody take your seats IMMEADIATELY! That means you too #87."

"Whatever" Hied retorted

"Now as you all know I have a very important announcement that I have to make" Azuma stated as he walked behind his desk.

"Have the Victim finally been defeated?" Kizna asked knowing that Ikhny wanted to, but was too shy to ask, especially after what Hied said to her.

Azuma glanced at the pink haired repairer and gave her a 'what-kind-of-dumb-question-is-that-look', and continued with his announcement.

"No, actually it is about all of _you._" He said while taking a seat in his chair.

"WHAT ABOUT US?" Everybody but Hied asked

"Actually, it is more or less about some of the restrictions the Top has put into place" Azuma answered calmly.

"Which ones?" Hied asked from his corner

"Well…" he cleared his throat, "it seems that there has been a lot of tension around the base lately so he has decided to remove some of the restrictions temporarily."

"You mean like a trial phase?" Zero inquired

"Why Zero, we didn't know you knew such _big_ words." Clay mused

"Ha-ha very funny"

"To answer you question Mr. Enna, yes I guess you could call it something like that."

"Instructor Azuma I believe that you are beating around the bush" Somebody said from the doorway

All eyes turned towards the voice

"Ah…Dr. Rill it's nice of you to join us I was just telling the Candidates about the Top's most recent proclamation." Azuma stood up and shook her hand. After a prolonged period of returning the custom everyone could see she was getting annoyed with him, and in a hurry too.

"Than hurry up and tell them already!"

"Man somebody's a bit on edge today." Yamagi commented

"Well let's see how far your patience goes when you have to confirm that the information was given in EVERY SINGLE CLASS ON G.O.A.!"

"…" Was all he said in response.

"It's a bit embarrassing for me too say this, but…" he started

"EMBARRASSING! How can it be EMBARRASSSING for YOU? THEY should be more embarrassed than YOU! Seeing that this ALL has to do with THEM!" Dr. Rill exploded.

"Well you see when I was a candidate and then a pilot I had…" Azuma started, his eyes glazing over as he relived past memories.

"Skip it old man, will one of you PLEASE tell us what's going on here? Because in case you haven't noticed none of us know what you two do." Zero interrupted, making the room very quiet. Kizna looked like she wanted to kick him for being rude, but Dr. Rill just smiled saying, "Of course. At least somebody here has a sense of urgency." shooting a glare at Azuma, "And since I doubt that Azuma is going to get to it anytime this century…"

"I was getting to it!" Azuma exclaimed

"Maybe by the time they graduate, so I'll just tell them myself."

"Fine you do that, see how embarrassing it is for _you_ to tell them."

"Very well then, on with the announcement." Everybody got an anxious look on his or her face, while Azuma had a slight tint of red and looked like he was taking a walk down memory lane.

It seemed like a millennia before Dr. Rill spoke again, the Madonna in white speaking slowly and dramatically, "The Top has declared that the Candidate/Repairer relationship is no longer strictly platonic! Also curfew has been momentarily removed."

Nobody even heard her last sentence, as their thoughts were a thousand galaxies away thinking about what they had just been told. More than a few blushes adorned the faces of the teens as they realized the implications of this. Most of their thoughts distracting them as their Instructor chipped in, "Public displays of affection are still on the punishment list though."

A/N: I know that there should be a bit of a gap between the beginning of this and the announcement, but perhaps I'll put that in later, but I want to know if you, the readers, want to see that. Big thanks for those few of you that did me a big favor by reviewing and commenting. I expect more reviews with each chapter now that I'm back.


	3. Explanations

"The Top has declared that the Candidate/Repairer relationship is no longer strictly platonic

Chapter Two: Explanations

Disclaimer: Megami Kouhosei IS NOT MINE! If it were than both the anime and manga would have been finished, but since they're not; it isn't mine.

"The Top has declared that the Candidate/Repairer relationship is no longer strictly platonic! Also curfew has been momentarily removed."

Nobody even heard her last sentence, as their thoughts were a thousand galaxies away thinking about what they had just been told. More than a few blushes adorned the faces of the teens as they realized the implications of this. Most of their thoughts distracting them as their Instructor chipped in, "Public displays of affection are still on the punishment list though."

As for the one person not blushing or thinking about this, "Why did the Top cancel the curfew, the one thing that made us get some sleep? Now we can just train all night."

"It seems that Mr. Gner has a point. To answer your question we still expect you in your classes when you're supposed to be there. Should you miss a class more than 10 times than you will be expelled so if you do miss class you better have a damn good excuse for not being there. Also being late 5 times will be considered an absence." Azuma explained

By this time everyone had snapped out of his or her thoughts to listen to the instructor. A couple of them even had thoughts they shouldn't have zooming around in their heads.

"So you're saying that we can stay up as late as we want doing whatever we want, just as long as we get to class the next day?" asked Yamagi.

"Correct, although I wouldn't recommend trying to sneak into the Cafeteria at night." Azuma clarified, glaring at more than one of the male candidates, "Ever since Chef heard about the curfew suspension he's had his entire staff make the whole room impenetrable to just about anything."

"Damn it." Everybody turned to stare at Roose, since he didn't normally utter obscenities. "What? I like food, big deal."

"Yes Roose we know that, but that doesn't mean that you should curse like that."

"Yes Wrecka." This made everyone (except the one person who never does) in the room smile since all of them knew that Wrecka had Roose wrapped around her little finger.

"Hey Roose, I like food just as much as you do, but you don't hear me complaining about not getting a midnight snack." Zero said.

"At least not yet." Kizna whispered under her breath; she knew her partner too well, and mentioned this as an afterthought. Even though she smiled as she said it.

Zero gave them a look that said 'I-dare-them-to-keep-me-from-the-food'

"You look like you have a plan Zero, do you?" a curious Wrecka-slave asked him

"Yes, but I'll tell you later when present company can't hear us." whispered Zero, answered eyeing Azuma and Dr. Rill.

"OK then"

"Alright everyone should be all up to date on the rules at GOA; if any of you have questions about the new rules you can ask after class. Now let's get to the PRO-INGs and have us a practice battle. Three way match: Roose, Yamagi, and Clay vs. Zero vs. Hied."

"This should prove to be a most interesting battle" Clay commented

"For being such a genius you don't seem to have a big vocabulary when it comes to the word 'Interesting'" Saki reprimanded her partner. This made everyone laugh, and Clay even turned a little pink.

"Come on guys hurry up" an anxious Zero was practically bouncing off the walls from excitement.

'_Man what a spaz, if he were more mature about these kinds of things then he might actually become a pilot,_' Ikhny thought, '_also if he were more like a gentleman then Kizna might actually treat him like a person. At least they communicate and act like a team, whereas Hied is always so cold, but I believe that there is a kind and gentle person underneath all the ice. It will just take some time and love to melt it all._' Unlike all the others thought, Ikhny was actually secure enough with her feelings and herself to admit to liking Hied as more than a partner, or jerk, as her friends thought. She had even told her best friend Kizna about the feelings. She was supportive like she always is, but she didn't like the idea of her feelings being about Hied. '_She's just like the others. They can't see that Hied could be really nice if he wanted to._'

When Dr. Rill had told them about the platonic relationships being abolished, Kizna had turned to look at Ikhny to see what her reaction would be. On the face of the girl with glasses Kizna found a look of shock and hope. But when she looked at the object of Ikhny's admiration she found a snarl on the face of a certain silver haired candidate.

After the battle, which ended in a three-way tie between Hied, Zero, and Yamagi. Clay was knocked out pretty early, and towards the end Roose lost almost all of his strength, and Hied finished him off.

'_Weaklings,_' Hied thought, '_I thought that this was actually important. Turns out it was just another obstacle that G.O.A. has put in front of us to weed out those that are too sentimental to pilot an Ingrid. At least the news about the curfew is useful, I can finally train as much as I want to without having to worry about the instructors catching me._' He remembered some of the nights when he would sneak out of his room and have practice battles with the artificial Victim. '_I just have to remember to get to class, that shouldn't be too hard._' he added as a side thought while he walked out of the battle room into the hallway.

Most of the people in the room noticed Hied walk out, but they didn't care and probably never would. A pair of blue eyes just stared at the door like they expected it to explode soon. About a minute after Hied left the owner of the eyes decided to have a little chat about respect and manners (like he was one to talk), and thus exited quickly.

Zero thoroughly searched G.O.A. for any sign of Hied to give him a piece of his mind, but could not find him anywhere that he could normally be found. '_Damn,_' Zero thought as he ran down one of the hallways leading from the rec. room, '_I can't find Hied anywhere, I've even looked in the places that you can usually find the others. In fact the only place I haven't looked is in our room._' Zero made a quick turn to head back to his, Clay's, and Hied's room. Upon opening the door, Zero caught a glimpse of silver hair heading from the bathroom; luckily he had a towel raped around his waist. '_Hmm…It seems he just came back to take a shower, I wonder why though. While I'm here I might as well tell him what I came to._' Zero got ready to yell at Hied about just walking out of the room like he did. But before anything could come out of his mouth Hied started to talk.

"Listen Enna, I don't want one of your so called 'talks' right now. I just came back here to get a shower and a quick nap." He growled

"But…"

"Why don't you go back to your girlfriend Enna?"

Zero huffed and crossed his arms defiantly, "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Look, I've noticed how you look at your repairer, and frankly it makes me sick to see such weakness from the only person that stands a chance against me. In fact if you keep it up even Roose will have surpassed you in skill."

"KIZNA IS NOT MY GIRLFRIEND!" Zero yelled at him angrily, steam practically visible from his ears. Though he would have to think about this later as it was almost time for lunch.

"Whatever you say Enna."

"Just do everyone a favor Hied and SHUT UP!" He said as he walked out the door, yelling his last words so that Hied could hear them.

Upon entering the Mess Hall Zero noticed that all of his friends were already eating their dinner, "Couldn't you guys have waited for me?"

"Well if you get your supper now you will be done at the same time we are. Especially if you eat as fast as you normally do." Kizna said sticking out her tongue.

"Man, are all you guys against me today?"

"It seems to be that way Zero" Tukasa answered his question

"We just felt that you weren't being special enough" Wrecka said innocently, but everyone just smiled. They all knew what she meant.

Zero just sighed and went to get his lunch, and sure enough to Kizna's prediction Zero finished at the same time that everyone else did. He still ate with his usual gusto.

After lunch the group split up and went their own ways Wrecka, Roose, Tukasa, and Saki went shopping. Roose only went because Wreck told him too wink, wink. Clay said that he wanted to do some research and headed off to the Library/Reference room on G.O.A. Yamagi soon followed saying that he needed to pick up a good book. This just left Zero, Kizna, and Ikhny. They debated on what they should do. Kizna and Zero were bickering their ideas until Ikhny gave them a quick solution.

"Kizna, why don't you take Zero out for some zero-gravity training?"

"That's a great idea Ikhny! What do you think Zero?"

"Aww, do I have to? I just got done eating, I don't think it's a good..." He whined before catching that certain look in his partner's eye that practically screamed at him, 'DO-OR-DIE'. Fearing Kizna, he decided to invite Ikhny to join them on their "space walk". Ikhny agreed seeing that she didn't have much else to do until Hied broke his Pro-Ing again.

"Alright then lets do this!" Kizna shouted then started pulling Zero to the airlock by his arm.

"HEY!" was all he could get out before he was rudely tugged into the airlock.

Ikhny just gave a slight giggle, she knew that they had feelings for each other but were too stubborn to admit it. If only Kizna would let her tell Zero about her affections for Hied, after all maybe he could help her. But then again Zero has disliked Hied more than anyone else on G.O.A. '_Perhaps if I help Zero get over his sickness he will help me…_' She thought as she headed towards the airlock after her friend and her friend's partner.

Outside G.O.A.

"Dang it Zero stop looking for a top and bottom." Kizna said, as she eyed Zero desperately searching for some kind of indication as to which way he was which.

"Perhaps I can help you guys?" Ikhny asked.

"No, Azuma said that this is for Zero and I to figure out as Candidate and Repairer" Kizna answered calmly

"But Kizna we haven't had any progress since we started." Zero pointed out.

"Fine, what would you suggest doing Ikhny?"

"First off, Zero stop wiggling around; take deep breaths and close your eyes." Zero did fidget for a bit before he finally calmed down enough to concentrate on other things.

"'K, now what?"

"Next visualize a solid surface below your feet, but you don't have any gravity holding you to it."

Now Zero scrunched up his face trying his hardest to hold the image. All Kizna could think about was how cute he looked when he tried concentrating, but soon caught herself and blushed a little. Ikhny noticed this and observed her friend for a couple of seconds out of the corner of her eye before Zero's voice brought her back to reality.

"Alright that's done, what next?"

"Pretend that the cable around your waist is the only thing that will get you to the door on the other side of the room."

Zero actually pulled on the cable for a while before asking for the next step

"Finally keep the room in your mind and open your eyes."

After opening his eyes, the first thing he saw was Kizna staring at him with a faint pink on her cheeks. '_The light from Zion makes her look even more beautiful than normal, although I wish that the space suit would show those adorable ears of hers._' He thought while trying to keep the room in mind, but it was too hard for his little mind and quickly started panicking.

"Ahhhh. What was that activity supposed to do for me again?"

"It was supposed to teach you that the only ups and downs are on you."

"Can you please be more specific?"

"There is no top or bottom is space, correct."

"Yeah."

"Then make a bottom below your feet with your mind, the room was a mental exercise that was supposed to teach you to _create_ a floor and ceiling so that your fear of drifting off would dissipate."

"Ohhh, I see now. I guess that I need more work with it. Next time Kizna and I come out here we can practice on it. Thanks a lot Ikhny, I just wish that there was some way that we could pay you back." Zero told her with a big smile plastered on his face.

"Don't worry about it, but I might need a favor in the future." Ikhny replied slyly.

Kizna just looked at her with one of those 'Are-You-Serious' looks.

"I promise it won't be much."

"All right then lets get back inside it's almost time for dinner."

At the mention of the word "dinner" Zero quickly forgot about there not being any gravity and even faster managed to get inside. This just made the girls giggle a bit, and then they followed him to the airlock. At dinner they found their entire group of friends waiting in line for them. They all sat down at their usual table with Candidates sitting next to their partners. The only one not present was Hied. This just made Ikhny worried, "Anybody seen Hied lately?"

After a second of thought Zero came up with an answer, "Yeah. Last I saw him he was in our room and he said he was going to take a nap, which is odd considering Hied never takes naps."

Other than Hied's strange behavior being mentioned every now and then dinner was perfectly normal, or as normal as it gets for their little group. Zero and Kizna even had a little sparring match, and Clay didn't even say anything was "interesting".

After dinner everyone but Zero and Roose were full and decided to start getting ready for bed. The thing that surprised the Repairers the most was that when they went to their rooms they found the Candidates had decided to walk them there. They said goodnight and quickly slipped into their nightclothes.

"Why did we just do that?" Yamagi asked in wonderment

"Who knows?" Zero countered with another question

"This is most interesting" Clay said

"Why are you guys bickering, I do this every night with Wrecka-chan" Roose said simply acting like it was natural to do such a thing

"That may be true of you Roose, but none of us have ever done it." Yamagi said with an annoyed tone

"Maybe if we went and got some sleep it might shed some light upon the situation?" Clay suggested

Agreeing with him they headed back to their rooms to get a good nights sleep, but when they arrived they noticed that Hied was not in the room. "We'll ask him about it tomorrow." Clay said taking note of Zero's inquiring gaze. Zero nodded and thought about all of the weird stuff that had been happening lately. But sleep took him over faster than it normally did.

'_Weaklings,_' Hied thought as he pushed himself harder, '_I will beat all of them…_'

A/N: Yes I know there was A LOT of OOC-ness in this chapter, but I would still like your comments on it. And, as if you didn't know this was coming, R&R plz k thnx.


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